AFTER GRANT WOOD (American Gothic) by Devorah Sperber
By Kitty Jospe
What do we look for in a work of art? Devorah Sperber provides a novel way of viewing and thinking with her installation entitled After Grant Wood (American Gothic) 3 (commissioned by the Memorial Art Gallery with partial funding from
Some of you will remember her work After Vermeer in the 2006 exhibit, Extreme Materials, where the raw color of thread (translated by digital pixels to each spool) becomes a recognizable scene, seen through the acrylic spheres. Her Artist’s Statement acknowledges that there is no one truth or reality: “I am interested in the link between art and technology, how the eyes prioritize, and reality as a subjective experience vs. an absolute truth. As a visual artist, I cannot think of a topic more stimulating and yet so basic, than the act of seeing--how the human brain makes sense of the visual world.” -- Devorah Sperber, 2005 (2) Her witty titles, such as Manuf®actured, and a sample of the titles of her solo exhibits, give a sense of her artistic vision: Bifocal, Mirror Universe, Threads of Perception, Iconic Visions, A Sense of Déjà Vu, Clin d’oeil au Louvre, Seeing Things, Pixilated. Group exhibit titles titillate curiosity about how our eye and brain interpret visual stimuli: Brain: the inside story; Eye Spy: playing with perception; Up cycling: recuperating past lives; Beyond Appearances. Sperber first started with painting-like recreations, created by computer-based, color-chartered printouts. This led to exploring a range of materials from faceted beads, Swarovski crystals, and chenille pipe cleaners (to recreate a shag-rug replica of paintings). But why stop there! 18,000 Letraset marker caps arranged on flexible canvas create “Lie like a Rug”(3) where an oriental rug looks crumpled without the viewing tool, and perfectly flat with it. Sperber’s current installation complements the 63rd Rochester Finger Lakes Exhibition. Both shows dare us to suspend belief, and engage us with surprises. Where do you usually find a spool of thread, and how do you use it? By taking 4,392 spools of thread (1 ¾ inches high), suspended on a steel ball chain and hanging apparatus, conventional ideas are challenged by a visual game of spool art which form an upside-down mosaic of a well-known portrait. Most of the visitors who pause in front of this large piece seem to enjoy the puzzle to the eye. It is both within our grasp and not, where rationally, the viewer can imagine the precision of arranging the colors, and yet, intuitively, there is a primitive response to color and form. Just as art has seen many revolutions which challenge traditional and academic ideas about harmony in composition, Sperber takes us to a wild side of the imagination. The imagery is derived from digital photographs that she manipulates and translates into "low-tech" pixels. This labor-intensive work calls to mind the work of Chuck Close, who challenges the boundaries of traditional print making, breaking down a portrait into mini-pictures as discrete and independent September 2011 Page 3 The title (After Grant Wood (American Gothic 3) speaks to both the literal and figurative aspects of this painting, executed by Grant Wood in 1930. Like Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa, the figures in American Gothic have become cultural icons and subject of parody. A booklet near our Sperber installation gives some examples of ways the painting of a dour-faced farmer, his equally grim-faced wife have been the subject of caricature. Not only are faces subject to parody, such as substituting those of President and Mrs.Obama, but also the architecture of the house or clothing, for instance by military fatigues. We can see the power of image and how it enters into our cultural consciousness, whether as advertising gimmick or artist’s wish to shake and change our consciousness. Such art raises the question of what we seek to satisfy our personal as well as culturally-formed sense of aesthetics. Biography Devorah Sperber was born in 1961 and raised in Detroit, Michigan until the age of ten, when she moved to Denver, Colorado. From 1979 to 1981, she attended the Art Institute of Colorado, Denver, and in 1987, she received her BA from Regis University, Colorado. Shortly after graduation, Sperber was asked to include her figurative stone sculptures and related bronze castings in a national exhibition on the Holocaust victim Anne Frank, which helped in the emergence of her career. Although she is based in New York City, her extensive list of exhibits spans the US, Puerto Rico, and international venues such as Paris. (5). I hope you will enjoy consulting her many works by checking on the websites below. There is a powerful assertive force in these astonishing installations that energizes, inspires, refreshes a fragmented part of ourselves, restoring a sense of being part of a connected whole. to further appreciate the variety of thread spool works from 1999 to present, consult: (1) http://www.devorahsperber.com/thread_works_index_html_an d_2x2s/index.html and http://www.devorahsperber.com/installation_views.htm (2) http://www.devorahsperber.com/thread_works_index_htm l_and_2x2s/wood3.html (3) Lie like a rug: http://www.devorahsperber.com/rug_html_pages/index.html http://www.devorahsperber.com/reviews_articles/nytimes_kato nah_10_05.htm Review of "Over + Over," Katonah Museum of Art in Katonah, New York, 2005) (4) VW Bus: Shower Power, 2001. http://www.devorahsperber.com/vw_html_pages/index.html (5) photo from March 2011 at the Grand Palais: http://www.flickr.com/photos/amandenoye/5576659945/ (6) http://kidspace.massmoca.org/exhibitions/archive/sperber/ (general article from 2008, and view of the Last Supper) Earlier Works: http://www.devorahsperber.com/more_preview.html WHAT’S UP WHERE: ART
